This invention relates to a video telephone system which enables two-way simultaneous communication of speech, dynamic image, character and graphics information, etc., to which a digital communication line is applied.
A video telephone and a video conference system are known as conventional apparatus for enabling two-way simultaneous communication of speech, dynamic images, etc. Two-way simultaneous communication of speech, dynamic images, etc., is made between video telephones or video conference systems directly connected over a communication line, and information such as documents and graphs required when the video telephones or video conference systems are busy are generally exchanged by using other machines such as facsimiles.
Also known is a video conference system of the type wherein three or more video telephones and video conference systems are connected over a multipoint line for bidirectional simultaneous communication of speech, dynamic images, etc., by three or more parties.
However, in government offices, enterprises, etc., it is necessary, even in the video conference system as described above, for a secretary or a receptionist to once receive an incoming call and then transfer it to the person intended for communication by the calling party as with conventional telephones. In contrast, it is also required that a secretary or the like should set up communication and then connect the outgoing call to his or her superiors.
If data or materials such as documents and graphs are transferred by facsimile communication in the conventional video conference system as described above, a conference must be interrupted each time the facsimile communication occurs and so the operability of the video conference system is not good. It is impossible for both communicating parties to point out a graph or enter remarks in material simultaneously which may be inconvenient for a particularly detailed description.